shifters67

Downloading now - thanks for the links - will install and compile so i know i can then will come back to you. shifters

Yes thats the direction Pixel and myself were looking in, but we are not very familar with the vpinmame.dll design. I have looked at the controller object but thats strictly a polling mechanism. Any suggestions where in the vpinmame.dll src to start looking - i would rather have the comms driven by rom events (which is processor efficient) rather than polled in a time loop (which is not although better in the dll than in the vbs!). The 1280 mega (i have both 1280 and 2560) uses an FTDI FT232RL would that be compatible with your driver code? Normally to communicate with the arduino you have to install a driver on the PC and use a serial COM object to talk to the arduino over 38400 serial. Talking via FTDI over USB would be interesting! shifters

Hi Russdx, have you modified the vpinmame.dll before to allow direct access to the emulator state for switches, lamps and hardware? shifters

Hi Russdx, its this one http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardMega2560 i think the 1280 may have used the FTDI chip, but the 2560 uses AtMega8U2 or AtMega16U2 depending on revision of board As far as my software is concerned it runs on any mega. I can't find the 1280 specs to confirm if it uses the FTDI chip as the 1280 is considered EOL (although lots of clones around!). shifters

Hi Arkay, i will try and answer some questions for you! that should be 16x1A not 1w :-) The first driver board can drive much higher currents that the new one and is useful for full led strips which use Amps - its also expensive hence the second driver board which drives less current but is also cheaper. The 595's are simply to make more outputs from the arduino (which current supports 200 outputs per board!). The shield is a mechanism for being simply able to screw wires in rather than having to plug pins into the sockets on the arduino and it also clearly lays out which devices plug into which sockets! The arduino can only drive max 40mA per port so one of the driver boards is required to drive leds, contactors etc. You need one (or more) arduino mega 1280 or 2560 (a clone is fine), the shield board (for an easy way to wire) and the new driver board which plugs into the shield. This will give you 32 outputs as you indicated above. If you want another 32 outputs, buy a second driver board and plug that into the shield too! The shield (and software) are configured to take 4 of the new driver boards. You also need power (5V for arduino and 12v for the toys ) some wires and thats about it i think (plus all your toys of course, e.g. leds, led buttons, contactors etc). The new driver board is digital - no PWM, the original driver board does PWM for the motor etc and the arduino is configured to support the motor with min and max settings, so if you need a certain amount of power before anything happens you can configure a minimum value to use regardless of whats sent and ditto for max so it does not shake the legs off the cab! I will let pixel answer this, but we bought some inline fuses holders and fuses to go with the toys, not sure about relays though. The original driver board would drive 5v and 12v toys. Pixel did a special board for himeself that handles 24v. The 24v contactors i have seem fine at 12v.

Hi Russ! if you can demonstrate how to do that that would be great (i.e. some source code!) I have looked briefly at it but a bit lost. Any help here would be very much appreciated! We do have less lag already even though its serial because the arduino is intelligent and is totally optimised for dealing with incoming commands! The way commands are sent is optimised to reduce message traffic too. cheers Shifters

Well the 1280 and 2560 mega are like only £5 more than the one you proposed ...

Hi Sunday, I am using 1280 and 2560's - the main reason the code is currently 52K (12K+ lines of code!) and it uses about 5+K of memory. None of the other arduinos have sufficient resources. We choose the 1280 and 2560 not so much for the number of outputs but the memory. I have used official boards and clones and both seem good - cost is circa $30/£20/Euro25 per board. Bear in mind that the arduino will only drive 40mA max per output at 5v, if you want to drive what you intend you need to look at Pixels driver board. I also have a rasperberry Pi order for interest shifters

Thanks Pixel! Considering we have only been working on it for 7 or 8 weeks, we have made a lot of progress all around! Your hardware progress has been just as exciting as the software! cheers Shifters

Hi Pixel, only 75 left huh - may need to add some more :-) How about another 50? Shifters

Good to hear Pixel! Going to be a little while before release guys - be patient - I have only been working on the code for about two or so weeks! The software is still in early beta with a whole number of missing features. Shifters

Your a solder demon Shifters

Looks like your on a roll!! Shifters

Well i fought against but to no avail - all these cool toys - i had to go and buy an arduino mega to have a play with! Good old C code lol! Love the look of the network and SD shield that can go on the top of the Arduino. Could use the Sd card to hold patterns rather than memory. cheers Shifters PS (between Chris and PixelMagic i don't know what to play with next )

Having put getting a led wiz on hold till i set how this all turns out - can i ask a newbie question as i am not smart in the electronics department! I understood everything up until page 9 and then got lost! I understand the Arduino board (do you use the Mega 1280 or 2560?), i understand your driver board, but what are the '595s' for and how do they relate to the driver board??? This is facinating!! cheers Shifters PS whats are mudokan led - google turns up little but your vids!

HI all, i found when viewing fliers - it shows flier for flash, then the next page is for flash gordon, then second page of flash, then second page of flash gordon etc Oops just read up - please ignore me! cheers Tom

Got it working fine - many thanks for the help! regards Shifters

Hi guys, done some testing with WIP6. While it displays great - when i go into the menu in game, i get the menu up, can navigate up and down the list with the flipper buttons but I can't select anything. I tried the start button (which is 'x' on my machine) and launch ball (which is 'g' on my machine). While i configured up and down in the config to be what my flipper buttons are mapped too, there doesn't seem to be an option to define what the start/select key is to select the menu option. Is it optional for the sound to play? The noise is a bit harsh to me (but only my opinion i hasten to add!) Keep going with this great addition to hyperpin! Any ideas? regards Shifters

Very Interesting! I assume you mean you will program the box to handle lots of events, and then each ROM drives a specific event over USB via a script mapping the ROM event to a specific pre-programmed event on the arduino? They are cheap too compared to led wiz! i take it they can't handle the 500mA that the ledwiz can tho at 12V??? regards Shifters

Hi Guys, i love this script - thanks for the work Looking forward to the next release with PinEmHi support - any dates in mind for release? regards to all Shifters

Hi guys, auto hide the task bar - all images are now centred! thanks for the help! Back to painting .... regards Shifters

Still painting, sanding, painting .... Getting there Hope to have the back box up and connected in the next week to do some testing Shifters

OK thanks for the advice. Not got the back box built yet - still in the sanding/filling/sanding/paint cycle at the moment but will defo try that in a few weeks cheers Shifters

I think its possibly the screen display on the TV i.e. entire image not visible on TV making it look offset - going to fiddle - will let you know thanks Shifters

Hi Blur, desktop and VP set at 1920 x 1080 x 32 - is there anything else i should have set? I couldn't find anything to set hyperpin resolution - could it be this? regards Shifters